Libguestfs - Mar 2010 - Observations on compiling on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

I started with:
 - Mac OS X 10.5.8
 - Xcode installed
 - OCaml from GODI
 - qemu from git

autoconf is really ancient (2.61).  It doesn't have AM_SILENT_RULES
and although we tried to make things work when autoconf lacks this by
having:

  m4_ifndef([AM_SILENT_RULES], [m4_define([AM_SILENT_RULES],[])])
  AM_SILENT_RULES([yes]) # make --enable-silent-rules the default.

this nevertheless doesn't work.  I had to comment out these two lines
in both configure.ac and daemon/configure.ac.

There is no libtoolize.  I had to manually link build-aux/ltmain.sh ->
/usr/share/libtool/ltmain.sh

There is no autopoint.  I think this is the reason I had to manually
remove references to the po/ subdirectory.

There is no mkisofs.  I commented out the test for this in
configure.ac, but eventually I'll have to find out if this is
available for Mac OS X because it is relatively important (used by
libguestfs-test-tool amongst other things).

There is no qemu, but I was able to compile and use qemu from git.
There is an additional problem which is that 'qemu --help' opens (very
briefly) a toplevel window.  We run 'qemu --help' and 'qemu
--version'
at configure time and at run time in order to determine qemu features
and version, so we'll need to add the '-nographic' option [patch
coming up].

I have added --disable-daemon and --disable-appliance options to
'configure' [patch coming up].

No pkgconfig, therefore no PKG_CHECK_MODULES.  I commented out these
two tests temporarily.

The shell which runs configure is not bash, and so it doesn't
understand the 'echo -n' flag that we use in the configure script.
For example:

  echo -n "OCaml bindings ...................... "
  if test "x$HAVE_OCAML_TRUE" = "x"; then echo
"yes"; else echo "no"; fi

produces the output:

  -n OCaml bindings ...................... 
  yes

I was able to get all the way through
./configure --disable-appliance --disable-daemon
with the following results:

  Daemon .............................. no
  Appliance ........................... no
  QEMU ................................ /Users/rich/bin/qemu
  OCaml bindings ...................... yes
  Perl bindings ....................... no
  Python bindings ..................... no
  Ruby bindings ....................... yes
  Java bindings ....................... no
  Haskell bindings .................... no
  virt-inspector ...................... no
  virt-* tools ........................ no
  supermin appliance .................. no
  FUSE filesystem ..................... no

GODI has a strange layout for OCaml packages; a small OS X-specific
hack was required to src/generator.ml to cope with this.

OS X version of XDR doesn't support 64 bit / hyper type.  Known
problem and PortableXDR should be able to supply a replacement.  I
copied src/guestfs_protocol.[ch] from a Fedora machine temporarily,
but the complete solution is to use PortableXDR.

There's a few other portability problems in the code which I have
fixed [patches coming up].

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top

Hi, Richard.

libtoolize is distributed, but it is distributed by Apple as glibtoolize. Go
figure.

In general, Apple is much more of a FreeBSD system than a Linux system. So the
work here will help elsewhere.

I use MacPorts to install a newer autoconf --- it gives me 2.64 in
/opt/local/bin/autoconf.

Please let me know if I can help you on this.



On Mar 21, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> I started with:
> - Mac OS X 10.5.8
> - Xcode installed
> - OCaml from GODI
> - qemu from git
> 
> autoconf is really ancient (2.61).  It doesn't have AM_SILENT_RULES
> and although we tried to make things work when autoconf lacks this by
> having:
> 
>  m4_ifndef([AM_SILENT_RULES], [m4_define([AM_SILENT_RULES],[])])
>  AM_SILENT_RULES([yes]) # make --enable-silent-rules the default.
> 
> this nevertheless doesn't work.  I had to comment out these two lines
> in both configure.ac and daemon/configure.ac.
> 
> There is no libtoolize.  I had to manually link build-aux/ltmain.sh ->
> /usr/share/libtool/ltmain.sh
> 
> There is no autopoint.  I think this is the reason I had to manually
> remove references to the po/ subdirectory.
> 
> There is no mkisofs.  I commented out the test for this in
> configure.ac, but eventually I'll have to find out if this is
> available for Mac OS X because it is relatively important (used by
> libguestfs-test-tool amongst other things).
> 
> There is no qemu, but I was able to compile and use qemu from git.
> There is an additional problem which is that 'qemu --help' opens
(very
> briefly) a toplevel window.  We run 'qemu --help' and 'qemu
--version'
> at configure time and at run time in order to determine qemu features
> and version, so we'll need to add the '-nographic' option
[patch
> coming up].
> 
> I have added --disable-daemon and --disable-appliance options to
> 'configure' [patch coming up].
> 
> No pkgconfig, therefore no PKG_CHECK_MODULES.  I commented out these
> two tests temporarily.
> 
> The shell which runs configure is not bash, and so it doesn't
> understand the 'echo -n' flag that we use in the configure script.
> For example:
> 
>  echo -n "OCaml bindings ...................... "
>  if test "x$HAVE_OCAML_TRUE" = "x"; then echo
"yes"; else echo "no"; fi
> 
> produces the output:
> 
>  -n OCaml bindings ...................... 
>  yes
> 
> I was able to get all the way through
> ./configure --disable-appliance --disable-daemon
> with the following results:
> 
>  Daemon .............................. no
>  Appliance ........................... no
>  QEMU ................................ /Users/rich/bin/qemu
>  OCaml bindings ...................... yes
>  Perl bindings ....................... no
>  Python bindings ..................... no
>  Ruby bindings ....................... yes
>  Java bindings ....................... no
>  Haskell bindings .................... no
>  virt-inspector ...................... no
>  virt-* tools ........................ no
>  supermin appliance .................. no
>  FUSE filesystem ..................... no
> 
> GODI has a strange layout for OCaml packages; a small OS X-specific
> hack was required to src/generator.ml to cope with this.
> 
> OS X version of XDR doesn't support 64 bit / hyper type.  Known
> problem and PortableXDR should be able to supply a replacement.  I
> copied src/guestfs_protocol.[ch] from a Fedora machine temporarily,
> but the complete solution is to use PortableXDR.
> 
> There's a few other portability problems in the code which I have
> fixed [patches coming up].
> 
> Rich.
> 
> -- 
> Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat
http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
> virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
> powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
> http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Libguestfs mailing list
> Libguestfs at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/libguestfs

I have pushed the Mac OS X patches.  They work on OS X 10.5 and don't
appear to break the Fedora builds either.

... however that's not the complete story for building on OS X.

You need to remove the references to the po/ and images/ subdirectories.

images/ cannot be built because it requires a cpio which can produce
'hmac' format files (ie. the ones which the kernel reads).  The one on
Mac OS X does not seem to be able to do this.

OS X lacks mkisofs.  This is required for a few important things like
libguestfs-test-tool.  I commented out this test in configure.ac.

OS X lacks pkg-config.  I also had to comment out these tests in
configure.ac.

Basically it then builds and runs with a Fedora appliance.  I need to
write the full documentation for how to compile/run it, but if you
need immediate help, please ask on this list.

http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/libguestfs-now-works-on-mac-os-x/

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any
software inside the virtual machine.  Supports Linux and Windows.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/